There’s an axiom that we have noticed from comments, emails and observations that seems to indicate that most all cheaters “affair down.”

In general, this means that the person someone cheats with tends not to be as attractive, interesting, engaging, etc. as the primary partner who is being cheated on.

Rick Reynolds, LCSW says…

“I have never seen a situation where I felt an individual “affaired up”- meaning that they end up with a better person. It may seem like a better decision at the time, but it will prove it to be a step down.”

If nothing else, it will be a step down in terms of maturity, character, integrity, intelligence, loyalty, spirituality, sincerity, etc.

The reasons for why a person “affairs down” are potentially limitless, but the one noticed most often seems to be that the affair partner made the cheater feel good while stroking his/her ego so much that it didn’t matter what he/she looked like or how his/her character was.

Basically, the wayward spouse is needy and looking for someone to boost his/her ego and winds up looking for someone beneath him/her.

This person will make the cheater feel superior, if only temporarily.

Even if the affair partner’s appearance is attractive, it’s just a wrapping for something that is no match for his/her spouse.

So for the discussion this week…

In what ways do you feel that your spouse (or you) “affaired down?”

What do you feel were the reasons for this?

What effect does this “affaring down” have on your view of your spouse’s (or your) affair and his/her (your) mindset at the time?

Does the fact that your spouse did affair down make it easier or harder to take?

The website, The Hero’s Spouse has an interesting article on why a person might “affair down.” Though this is written in the context of a person experiencing a mid-life crisis, we thought it could possibly offer some further insight.

Thanks in advance to all who participate and remember to reply to one another in the comment section.

155 replies to "Discussion – Why Do Cheaters Affair Down?"

chiffchaff

April 3, 2013

My H ‘affaired down’ in key ways that also showed he wasn’t seeing her for what she really was. He claimed, at the time, that he never saw his friends and that we had no fun, that I didn’t have any friends or close family. The OW was someone who skipped from job to job, had no contact with her family and had no close friends at all. If their affair had progressed to something more permanent then also, how was he going to improve seeing his friends and family when having to move to the states? His parents would also have rejected her for quite some time as they are religious and the affair would definitely be laid squarely at her feet not his.
My H also had never liked women who wore tons of make-up and perfume, yet the OW’s main interest in life is make-up and perfume.
It was ego stroking. nothing more. She worked hard making him feel like a stud. I think my H went for this type of woman simply because she was available and she looked like the porn stars he was currently obsessed with at that time too. she looked slutty and at that time he was very interested in that. she played to those needs and so it was easy for her to appear like the perfect alternative to the drudgery of marriage.
He also chose someone who is into horoscopes, something he hates, and loves celebrity culture, something he hates even more.

the effect this had on me was to reconsider who my H was. for a while I thought that he’d been lying to me for 17 years and really preferred tarty women who dressed, smelled and acted like whores. this made me feel like I’d been some sort of poor second choice for our entire marriage. now I see it as an interest in something ‘naughty’ because he was doing something he hated himself for, which was using porn as a way of distracting him from how bad he felt about himself. it isn’t someone he wants to be anymore and I can see everyday that he works hard to make me feel better about myself in normal ways (like giving me a hug, holding me around my waist when we’re out) – which I love.

I think they affair down with someone totally opposite of us because some part of them knows that not only is what they are doing wrong, but it is not the choice they want for their life. They don’t want to lose their marriage and family, so by choosing someone they would never truly want to be with, it removes that destructive option from the equation. Just a thought.

EG
That is brilliant! He had the perfect life at home. Of course he didn’t need anything special because all she was was a piece of ass. Slam Bam thank you mam, going home now! Never thought of this before.

I’ll break it down one step even further. The majority of situations i have read about here and on other blogs, have been good or at minimum mostly good marriages plunged into infidelity. And mostly the husbands aren’t out looking for sex, they are looking for ego-jacking. I truly think the OW actually SEES a scenario she wants for herself. A basically good man, good husband, good father, good provider. She goes after it with the best weapons at her disposal…time, attention, adoration, admiration. For whatever vulnerabilities these men have, they looooove the attention. They crave it, become even maybe addicted to it. The OW fools herself into believing that this is “love”. Well it is……but not love for her, it is love the husband has for HIMSELF. My husband admits this. He never intended for it to become physical, he liked and was flattered by the attention and I can believe that. Our therapists both say it is common for an affair to become physical just because the cheating spouse wants to continue to have the emotional needs met. And most of them are getting met at home. He is basically happy with his marriage, his family, his life. The affair is a diversion, an escape. It is not reality, and he doesn’t intend for it to be. Ever. That’s why the beginning of the end is “usually” the OW starting to make demands. And then pop goes the affair bubble. Suddenly she is shaking the pedestal upon which she has placed him. Not so much fun anymore.

Eg, my h never wanted a relationship with this ow, she was completely opposite to what he ever wanted in a person. She was his cousin, and he was never into that. He didn’t do the deed with her, although she tried. All he could think of was me, no matter how hard he tried to forget about me he couldnt. She was just a escape from reality, all the stresses with raising a family, paying bills etc.
She knew what we had with each other, she wanted it for herself. So she tried hard to get it.

Strengthrequired

April 4, 2013

Ohh she was also a smoker, and he cant stand the smokers breathe. So imagine my h kissing this ow. I said to him how could you kiss her, how could you stand that smokers breathe. His response, I don’t know.

I am pretty sure that these personality types cannot not really handle the sudden aloneness of the breakup and their partners are from all walks of life just so keep them getting their egos fed. It seems they will go with anyone to keep up appearance of moving on. That’s what I would do if my ego were crushed, what I would do for sure as an immature woman, now I more enjoy the break and being able to show ex that breakup was no underhanded sneak stuff but me needing my intellectual space because I’d frankly outgrown the whole “them in my life thing” Even if I kind of cried out for Mr Next, I didn’t need to risk the ex’s ego snapping into violent rage from the suddenness. A nice breather is worth the wait.

bellabby

April 5, 2013

Since I found out about the EA, I have been trying to come to terms with the fact that both women he chose were so different from me in every aspect and he definitely “affaired down” I couldn’t decide if it was more hurtful and insulting because they weren’t hotter and sexier than me (don’t get me wrong, I’m just a regular middle aged woman who has tried to keep in shape and somewhat attractive). I don’t wear make up which he always liked. One of those sluts caked on the makeup, with lipstick smeared all around her lips. Someone he would never be attracted to. Both were divorced, one once the other twice. We’ve been together since we were in high school. One dressed like a complete mess. And both were “larger” than me in several ways, another turn off for him.
So in response to Linda and Doug’s questions, I agree with what everyone else said. My H was looking for an ego boost, attention stroking, whatever. I guess it didn’t matter what they looked like as long as they were telling him what he wanted to hear. That just makes me realize how low his own self esteem was/is and that he would degrade himself by choosing such trash. Didn’t do much for my self esteem knowing he picked them over me. His response to my questions about how he could do what he did, hurt and betray me, pick them over me (which he denies but he did) was that they were just “toys” that he took out to play with and now has put away. Somehow he thinks that’s supposed to make me feel better, but I think it just makes him feel better, less guilty, less responsible for his actions. He continues to insist that he did not have any type of affair including an EA. For me, his EA will always be in my head, my heart. My only hope, wish, is that the pain eventually lessens.

exercisegrace

April 6, 2013

I’m sorry. That is tough. I would need that recognition of calling what he did what it was. An emotional Affair. Otherwise I would probably say something completely rude and nonproductive like, so you would be “ok” if I played with some toys? You would not consider that an “affair”?

bellabby

April 7, 2013

His response to those very questions was that he would have already forgiven me, forgotten about what happened, and moved on. He tells me that is how we are different, he’d be over it already! That just makes me sick plus I feel he is minimizing my pain and hurt and humiliation and that he is somehow better than me because he would have forgiven me! He just doesn’t get it and I do hate that he will not label what he did an EA. Not that I really want to know what went on between them and him, but I feel that if I don’t know I will not be able to move past these feelings.

exercisegrace

April 8, 2013

Personally, it would have been hard for me to move forward without him acknowledging what he did. A key part of our discussions has been…why did this happen, and exactly what is he doing in his mind, his heart and his life to make sure this will never happen again.

Jb

September 24, 2015

I totally agree with this.Bravo ! xoxo

2nd Time Around

October 28, 2014

chiffchaff,

So glad I found your post!! I felt so alone until I read what you had to say. My husband also “affaired down”. The worst part was when D-Day came his excuse for his actions was that I had gained weight! He told me that he was repulsed by the way I looked. When I found out who he was having his EA’s with and knew what they looked like wow I was shocked! Not only where they not visually what I would have expected based on the things he had told me before I found out they were not the kind of women who he liked.

He has a list of “Pet Peeves” and a list of what he wants out of a relationship. None of these women fit the bill!! All of them had at least one if not several of the Pet Peeves! His top three are people who are late, women who look slutty too much make up and inappropriate clothing at work, women who are loud and obnoxious. Each of the women had at least two of his top three!

Hahaha my husband’s OW has a ton of makeup but no nail clippers! But her nails are short, so he thinks she bites them. And the ONLY thing that my husband told me he wanted me to do before we got married was to keep my nails short (he obviously accepted everything else about me as is) because of sanitary reasons. Also, he laughed at me early in our marriage when I put on a lot of makeup…

the OW’s blog recently had a posting where she advocated using guidance from books on how to best manage conducting a long distance relationship. I’m sure my H would love to know that he was being played by book advice but why did the OW not read any books on how to avoid being sucked into an affair instead?

My H affaired old and down by getting emotionally involved with his HS GF that went nowhere with her life. At the time of their EA she was a waitress at a bar. (After d-day he would emphasize it was an upscale bar. Baha!) She has always worked in the bar scene even now at the age of 46. She’s lived a very hard life. She has extremely low self-esteem according to my H and looks tired and old. Apparently she was married to an alcoholic/drug addict (and participated in this scene as well), lost custody of one of her kids, her daughter became a pregnant teen and her last child no longer lives with her either. She’s been separated from her H for a while. Probably can’t afford a divorce.
I believe she was looking for someone to save her and my H was looking for someone to save as well as stroke his ego. He said in therapy how she always put him on a pedestal and made him feel more important than he was…back in the day and at the time of the EA.

It disgust me that she was his choice. I’m intelligent, attractive, stayed youthful, kind, humorous, and MORAL. I’m not perfect but I think I’m a pretty good catch. So I think what the heck is wrong with me if she was his choice. Why was she worth ruining our marriage and dragging me through the gutter? Because she was easy, simple and willing. She offered the fantasy of his youth. He wanted a Viagra pill for his ego and she offered that. I believe if she had taken better care of herself and presented herself better the EA would have turned physical when he went to see her (several states away). My H says otherwise but I cannot reconcile that with my common sense. Post d-day I would tell him I should send her a thank you note for being a skank because that’s what ended the EA. For me it makes it harder to stomach that she was, probably still is, pathetic. It also speaks volumes about how crappy my H was feeling about himself at the time if she was his choice.

it does speak to who he is, his pain and brokenness. Not yours. I beat myself up with the same questions. How could he choose THAT? What does that say about me? I am slowly learning to believe it does not have ANY reflection on me. It just shows he can be stupid, and depressed and hurting and fooled by the outer professional package. Because on the inside the OW was and is a skank.

You know what really hurts…he was broken and stupid and the answer was to do something that would crush my soul and break my heart. I believe I’m stuck trying to reconcile how I can still love somebody that choses that option. Someone who is willinging to risk his family for some disgusting excuse of a woman. And even worse whose mother encouraged it.

Exactly, my h ow family celebrated an engagement party for them. They forced an engagement party on my h, they invited people over and The whole time he knew nothing about it until he asked what was going on. She and her whole family were plotting against my family and my h fell right into it.
My h told me they told him he had to protect her name, what about my name?

Wait. They had an engagement party. For a married man. A surprise engagement party. What. Were. These. People. SMOKING? Protect her name? Sorry folks, she was WITH A MARRIED MAN. She already blackened her name all by herself. OMG. Isn’t that what they call “Mass Hysteria”???

Rachel

July 5, 2017

Oh my goodness!! That is just sick! Those people were obviously off their rocker to do something so stupid. He was a married man who wasn’t even divorced!! There were no guarantees that this man would leave his wife!! Talk about utter stupidity!! It sounds like it was a desperate attempt to take that married man away from his wife! Ummm, I often wonder if this is the same crap or similar that happened to my husband when he was involved in a midlife crisis affair. She lived in another country and was desperate to get him to marry her. She carefully orchestrated a pregnancy which later resulted in a miscarriage. She claimed she couldn’t get pregnant at the time! What a crock of crap that was!! It was all on purpose! She wanted his baby for financial gain, that’s it! She already had 10 children with 5 or 6 different men. Hmm, I wonder why none of this relationships worked either?? She was obviously a whack job who couldn’t make a relationship work and used men. Anyhow, to this day I still can’t understand why he would have chosen that pile of crap. She was an affair down if I’ve ever seen one. Not even close to what he’s attracted to physically or otherwise, not even close. He told me awhile ago he has no idea why he even chose her because she had nothing to offer him that he wanted anyways. He said he seen all the warning signs from the beginning but ignored them. So, my question is, Why ignore the warning signs? She had nothing to offer so why keep going? It makes no sense to me.

Hopeful

April 3, 2013

I guess I feel mixed about this topic idea as it hasn’t particularly helped me to crap on the OW at this stage in my recovery, but I will say that I do appreciate the shift in focus to what the APs seek and find: namely, selfish ego fulfillment that could be accomplished temporarily by any number of crappy and flawed people as crappy and flawed people (even if temporarily crappy and flawed) are the only ones who would engage in this type of behavior. The question isn’t what does she have or I have that is better or worse. Really, the matter to discover is what permanent (until fixed consciously and laboriously) personality flaw or gaping need does your spouse have that NO ONE ON EARTH could ever hope to fill. Those gaps and holes are the ones that this OW or OM is fulfilling (mostly through illusion and manipulation). Really the woman could be anyone who happens to be able to touch on those gapping needs. Could be thousands. The rare partner is the one who sees that gaps, can fulfill them everyday, and still loves you and even seeks to help you fix issues.

Anyway, fart on what the OW has or doesn’t have. I am desperately trying to not care. She is beautiful, clever, and charming. But, who cares.

And her beauty and charm is likely all smoke and mirrors. I congratulate you for skipping the self-flagellation step that so many of us have fallen into. Kudos for recognizing that she saw and exploited a need. That’s all.

The OW seemed attractive, intelligent, etc., and was a person in a highly regarded career. She made my H feel good by boosting his ego with her sexual interest and sympathetic conversation. The way he affaired down was, first, in the most obvious way: she was a person of low character, the kind who would cheat on her own H and sleep with someone else’s. And she didn’t really care about my H in any deep way, he was just a diversion from her unhappy life. It was fun for her to be involved with him for a while, but it didn’t really mean much to her and he eventually came to see that he had trashed our marriage and his own character for a pathetic involvement with someone who was cheap and meaningless.

Did he affair down? Let me count the ways. First, I will state the obvious. Someone who can have sex with another woman’s husband, in another woman’s home, surrounded by evidence that this is a FAMILY that she is out to destroy, is obviously a person with no morals. HER: she was his colleague and he commented more than once (as have others) that she was completely disliked by everyone in their world, co-workers and clients alike. She thought she was better than everyone, and had a very snobby attitude. He also commented more than once on her lack of female friends, and how unusual that was for a single woman (who would presumably have more time to hang out with gal pals than a married woman would). ME: I make friends easily, tend to be outgoing and friendly. His colleagues, and few clients that I have met, have always reacted positively to me and he always saw that as great. HER:

HER: told him from the beginning that kids were “not her thing” She is childless by choice, and way into her career. He has four kids. Not sure where he thought THAT was headed. ME: I love kids, I’m good with them. He loves that I chose to give up my career (yes you judgemental skank, I am well educated too, she looked down on my choice) to stay at home with our kids. HER: very into money, very into her brand names, very into her image. Food snob, expensive restaurants when they ate out and spent more on appetizers, desserts and wine than I spend on my entire meal. ME: I am easy to please, more into the company I am with than the food. I don’t drink at all and my husband doesn’t either. She does a lot, so big mismatch there. i like quality items, but don’t really care as much about the “name”. I loved him back in the day when he didn’t have two dimes. Way before he had a professional career and made good money. HER: She outweighs me by at least 80 pounds and is not fit at all. Husband himself said he was embarrassed more than once at how she dressed for business meetings. ME: He has never once criticized my style, which is more tasteful than hers. I am at a normal weight and I exercise. HER: she had a “me first” attitude, which I suppose was easy for him to overlook when she put him with her in the first place spot. ME: I put everyone else first. With four kids, it’s a given. He couldn’t always have the number one spot. This is an area he can really see the difference in NOW. The list could go on and on, but I will end with the BIGGEST one of all. I knew he was depressed about losing his dad, his business nearly failing (and the depression worsened as the affair progressed) , but he confessed to her that he was suicidal with a plan. She told him NOT to get help. NOT to get medication. NOT to get therapy. SHE would fix him and I was the problem in his life. I shudder to think of the “what ifs”.

The reasons? In his words, the affair was an escape from reality. He went into self-destruct mode. He was never physically attracted to her, although it was a PA as well. It was all about how she made him feel about himself and how he thought he looked reflected back from her. She was nobody and nothing special, she just was part of a perfect storm. He was at vulnerable point, and in her own words, she “pursued him aggressively”. He has said repeatedly that she did nothing, and was nothing special. She could have been anyone.

For awhile it all really threw me down in a pit. I felt like I had put tremendous effort into being a great wife, and he chose a whore who was the polar opposite of me.. It made me wonder if I had any good qualities at all if I could lose a competition with THAT. I now have more understanding that she was NOT competition. He was reacting to brokenness in HIMSELF. She was a symptom of HIS disease process, and he considers her the biggest mistake of his life. And that’s how most men end up seeing their OW. Who wants to live the rest of their life knowing they are someone’s “BIGGEST MISTAKE”. Not me!

Does that make it harder or easier to take? that’s a tough one. In some ways easier, because she is clearly not someone that he would ever consider in “real life”. If he was single tomorrow, someone like her would not even get a second look, as she doesn’t meet any of the criteria he has for wife and mother.
On the other hand, there is nothing that makes the feeling of betrayal easier to take. While I am glad that I compare more favorably in EVERY category, it also makes me angry that he could stoop that low and would even want to do so.

My h was broken too, she had him believe I broke him and that she was saving him from the clutches of his wife. I too started with my h with nothing, she wouldn’t have stayed with my h given the chance if he had nothing. She wants someone that can buy the expensive things she wants.
She is very materialistic. He flattered her with the things he bought her and paid for her. He would never have been able t keep up with her demands.
She played with his ego, and he liked it because he was feeling depressed about life, she made him feel better.
His escape from reality, yet i was made out to be the worst thing on earth. That’s what I can’t get over, the fact he made me sound so terrible.

I’m so glad to hear someone else say exactly what I have been thinking and feeling. Even though my h insists that he had no feelings for either woman and never stopped loving me, how to I believe that when he talked about me to 2 women he barely knew, his wife of 35 years, our marriage, our life, our sex life! I’m so humiliated and hurt beyond words, I feel like the pain will never go away. One of those stellars of society accused me of emasculating him. She told him she doesn’t know how he could accept our marriage as normal because it wasn’t. She believed she was the only sane conversations he had. He also insists that he never bad mouthed me, always told them I was a great wife, mother, cook, etc. However, both women knew things about me and our relationship that could have only come from him. They didn’t know me (met them once) and they certainly didn’t know what was going on in our marriage, except what he told them. I am trying to reconcile but I’m not sure how I can get past this betrayal of our personal life together.

Bellabby, it’s hard knowing that our h told things tomthe ow, to make him look like the poor thing in the marriage, with a wife that is so darn crap and undeserving of him. My h never in his life told anyone that I was terrible, that I wasn’t a good wife, he never in his life put me down, until she came into the picture.
It had to be a cousin of his, he told his family he was looking at leaving me when he was on holiday visiting his family, he was making plans with her, made me look like I was a shocking wife, everything I hadmno idea about. Everything was a shock to me, I had no clue that we were in trouble, he didn’t once come to me, so him making out that I was so terrible in front of his family has been so hard to take, it is so humiliating. I’m just relieved that they are overseas and not here. However, thankfully his parents were so upset with him, they actually for the first time in my married life with him, supported me and not his new romance with the ow.
Yet I know my h wasn’t himself, yet what he said about me doesn’t make it any easier. Yet I know he was trying to make sense of what was going on with himself, and to bad mouth me just made it easier for himself to live with.

bellabby

April 7, 2013

Thanks Strengthrequird. Strangely he did tell them that I was a good wife, etc., but unfortunately he threw in all the other crap as well. And of course his excuse is he doesn’t remember telling them anything bad about me, even when I show him proof of what they said. His answer is that they just made up their own scenarios about me and he never said anything negative about me. I guess it was just a coincidence that they were able to “make up” EXACTLY what was going on between us. Yes I guess our h are confused whatever, but that is no excuse for what they did to us.

chiffchaff

April 4, 2013

I recalled today that I used to work with a man who had married his AP. His affair had happened during his first marriage and he had a child with his first wife. This man would constantly deride his first wife to me and other colleagues and it was never even relevant to a conversation. However, what was always amusing at the time was that she always drove to collect him from work. he wasn’t allowed to drive himself to and from work. So, if we were working on a case together and had to stay late (nothing was going on with us either – it was work) she would be on the phone to him every five minutes before showing up to collect him. Sometimes she would phone and ask to speak to me and remind me that she was his wife and needed him to stop work to look afetr his children, things like that. It was always a bit weird. Sometimes she would literally arrive in the office, out of the blue and in quite a state, literally frothing at the mouth with anger that he was still in the office. He would have to stop work to appease her and get her to calm down and leave so he could finish work. Once she’d left he would just look exhausted and occasionally whinged that she was paranoid about him but he would always add that ‘well, I shou;d’ve known she’d end up like that’.
So, this OW had got her MM, just what she wanted. But what she’d also got was a lifetime of her own medicine and she didn’t like the taste of it.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this story. She really punched her ticket for the Karma bus, didn’t she? I am sure that she will never, ever trust him. She will wonder, and worry from now on about his work relationships. It will likely drive them apart in the end, and likely he will blame his first wife for that too. People are so blind!

That is what I call a lifetime of bad Karma for both of them! I guess he had to deride his ex-wife because he was so freaking miserable of course it would be her fault too. Maybe she rejected the stupid cheating, bastard.

The CS may have “affaired down” but that is not the OW/OM fault. Our spouses chose them for whatever quality they had and I believe that says more about our spouses than the AP’s. I’m sure I will get strong condemnation for this but as I told my H. I cannot worry about the OW anymore because he could kick the trash can and 10 more could take her place. She was no challenge and offered herself up on a platter and my loving, faithful, committed, honest, trustworthy husband took her up on it!!! I’m done wanting revenge on her. She is having her own bad Karma because she lost everything. I’m not giving her my power anymore!!!!

No condemnation here. I agree with you. I will admit that I do have anger towards her, as she admits she pursued him relentlessly over a long period of time. Plus I can’t imagine hurting someone’s kids the way ours have been hurt. BUT. He gave in. He is the one who vowed to be faithful to me, not her. He is the one who owed fidelity to our marriage, our children and our family. I’m with you on not giving her anymore of my power. I am actively working on this right now. I deleted a lot of blogs I used to read regularly, and I am trying to stop seeing myself as a “betrayed spouse”. I have spent quite a bit of time seeing that as who I am, instead of what happened to me. And in fairness, while he cheated on me, I am trying not to define HIM as a “cheating” spouse anymore. Yes he cheated, but he is working on his issues and has truly made big changes as well as shown genuine remorse.

She is definitely not worth the thought. To use your phrase, it could have been any other roach that crawled into the trash can he had made of his life back then. She’s a parasite, nothing more.

In what ways do you feel that your spouse (or you) “affaired down?”
My husband absolutely “affaired down”! I mean, not that the OW was dog ugly, but she wasn’t anything special, didn’t have a great body or anything. Is actually kind of plain and is older than him (an me!). But obviously the OW isn’t as smart, loyal, moral, as good of a mother, as good as a wife, and as good as a person as I am or SHE wouldn’t have been cheating on HER husband with mine! As little as it seemed to bother him that SHE was married during the cheating, it bothers him now. He used the OW being married as a way to justify his own behavior because if he judged the OW truthfully then he’d have to judge himself, and he wasn’t about to do that! At least not then anyway.

What do you feel were the reasons for this?
As mentioned above, a cheater isn’t quality, and the person with a cheater KNOWS this, but doesn’t want to face it. If a person cheats WITH you, then they most certainly can cheat ON you! And most likely will!!

What effect does this “affaring down” have on your view of your spouse’s (or your) affair and his/her (your) mindset at the time?
It is really insulting that he would risk our lives, and my health, but cheating with someone who would cheat!! I know that may sound strange, but it makes me ill that he would be inticed by someone who clearly had no morals and no care for her own family. Someone who clearly didn’t care about HIS family either! And that she was older makes it less understandable. I guess if she had been 18 and hot and single… Idunno… it would never be okay, but that she had kids too… he never thought about being THEIR daddy, but he never thought of being a daddy to his own kids during that time. I’ve never known my husband to really be STUPID – at least until the affair. My husband used to be so insulted when I would call him dumb for cheating. Luckily he is over that and accepts that it was the dumbest, most selfish, disgusting thing he has ever done or ever will do!

Does the fact that your spouse did affair down make it easier or harder to take?
I guess I answered this above… kind of… I just didn’t see the allure of the whore… I mean, I even went as far to admit that she wasn’t UGLY, but she wasn’t hot or young or anything like that! She was just there at his work every day, stroking his ego and eatting up every word he said… letting him feel like a hero because he was such a good guy and she loved him “sooooo much”… it was literally disgusting! Never mind the fact that she was a coward and never left her such horrible marriage, even 2 years after the affair is OVER she is still with her husband. Man, her husband must be such a bad guy if she continues to stay…. what a wench!!!

stupid is the operative word. I have always considered my husband to be very intelligent, but after the affair……ugh. I actually laughed right in his face when I was angry at him for risking my health, and he was adamant that he used a condom every time. She always had the condoms. I asked him if it ever occurred to him that she might sabotage them to get a stronger hold on him? I asked him if he was aware that condoms don’t prevent ALL diseases (HPV for one, and it can even lead to cancer). I asked him why he thought he was protected from disease when there was unprotected oral sex? He actually hadn’t even considered what that meant and had exposed him (and then me) to. Yep. Stupid doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Exercisegrace,
The reason your husband can’t “see” what could have been is because he is like my husband…… He’s talking out of his ass, which makes his eyes too shitty to actually “see” how it really is!!! Just sayin

They all talk out of their ass at the time of the fog. They try hard to make their actions meaningful, they try and not see the mess around them they have caused the people that are standing by them, as they make these stupid mistakes.
They don’t see the big picture only what the other person says to them. They cling to the ego boosts they get from the other person, as it makes them feel good. No they aren’t selfish, that’s what they think.
I never thought my h as being stupid before the ea, always thought how smart and intelligent he was. I see different now.
She was definitely the most biggest mistake he has ever done, I certainly wouldn’t to be someone else’s mistake.

I never allow my H to refer to this nightmare as a mistake. I am also quick to tell the counselor that I resent her referring to it as a mistake. One phone call could be labeled as a mistake. Hours of phone calls, hundreds of texts, deception,lies,and meeting for lunches is definitely a CHOICE. Ugh!!! OK, I feel better now.

Your right as well It was his choice to violate our vows, yet he couldn’t see the choices he made because right he wasn’t himself, he wanted to forget what he felt and she made it easier to do that. So I will say biggest mistake and the wrong choice, because when he realised how much of a mistake it was, he should have stopped, but he chose to continue for the sake of her, not for the sake of our family.
He chose to keep listening to her.

I so agree that what my husband did, an EA with 2 women, was not a mistake. You don’t make a “mistake” weekly for 3 years. That is deliberate betrayal, a choice he made every time he called their phones. A mistake would have been to sleep with one after their reunion and regret what happened and never speak to her or see her again. I could have accepted that easier than knowing that after they flirted at the reunion ( he swears he did not sleep with her that night) he called her continuously, and that at some point started talking to the second one, calling her weekly as well. No mistake, just a sick, pathetic choice as Monalesia said. He made the choice to destroy our marriage.

He chose a cousin, someone that smokes like a chimney, has children, has left a 20yr marriage, someone that didn’t give a shit that he was married with children, one that was only 1 yr at the time. He chose her because she was not me, someone he knew he would never be happy with, someone that deep down he knew was everything he didn’t want in a wife.
All she did was fill in the gaps he needed filled while he worked on making himself better. She was his antidote that made him feel good about himself.

What do you feel were the reasons for this?
He needed tomfeel good about hmself, she made him feel heroic because she made him feel sorry for her, she told him about her sorry life and her shit marriage she stayed in for 20yrs. She needed an escape from her reality and she chose him to fill it. She made him feel good, made out she was a good listener, she was his escape from reality.

What effect does this “affaring down” have on your view of your spouse’s (or your) affair and his/her (your) mindset at the time?
Me knowing that she was everything he didn’t want made it easier for me to see that everything he said about her was a load of crap, she wasn’t what he wanted in life, I knew it.
It made it easier to fight and not give up. Not sure what I would have done if I didn’t have that bit of knowledge about my h and his likes and dislikes. What makes him tick.

Does the fact that your spouse did affair down make it easier or harder to take?
I guess it makes it easier in a way, because I know what we have is more superior than what she could ever of hoped for with my h. Yet it makes me sick he chose someone like her to make him feel better and let her hurt our family.
It makes it harder in a way too because, he let someone like her into our lives, when he should have remembered he had morals and self respect with me, he lost it with her.
We almost lost our family because he lost faith in us. He listened to much to someone that was lost herself, he let her dictate what our life together was like instead of looking deep within himself to find the answer. He let her advise him on what my feelings were for him, when he should have known the right answer.
He listened to someone that wouldn’t stand by her own h. He let her hurt our family. He believed she wanted the best for him.
He watched as she left her kids behind as she went out with him, yet if I had done that to our kids he would have been disgusted.
So wasn’t easier because he let his family try and destroy our family, he let his family put shit on me and he believed it. She made out she was perfect and he believed it.
Yet he maintains that I was then only person he can trust, he can’t trust anyone like he trusts me.
So where does that leave me now. Struggling with trusting him, because of his family.

Hi All, This is Kelbellys H with my point of view as the CS. Did I “affair down”? Absolutely I did. Why?? Good question…. I would have to say it had a lot to do with the previously stated, the things she said were a huge boost for my ego…. I never actually met with the OW but we talked online a lot and on the phone a few times. I was unhappy with my life and my surroundings and I took it out on my family constantly and when I talked to her she told me all the right things and I just ate it up. Seeing as how I had never met her it didn’t matter what she looked like really, I could tell her she was pretty or whatever else I needed to to get her to tell me the things I needed to hear to make me feel better. Do I think I was being selfish? Looking back at it, you’re damn right I was… and I regret what I’ve done every single day.

My h chose a woman that was over 6 feet tall and huge all the way around. High maintenance, and ugly. My h is 5’8″ and works out all the time. The OW had a Facebook and I showed her pic to all my friends and we has a good laugh about it. Then one day her Facebook was gone. I asked my h and later (confrontation) the OW why she didn’t have a Facebook anymore and she said my h convinces her it was a useless waste of time an unprofessional. Hah. I think my h was embarrassed when I showed people. Makes me smile to this day. He said he was attracted to her outgoing personality. Duh. I asked him of he bed told her that it was her personality. Lol. You know like the old line ” you have such a pretty face, if you just lost weight you would be a knockout”. Lol. While the affair was happening I made fun of her at every opportunity and it really made my h angry which was half the fun. Sometimes , it’s been over a year from dday, I still get in a art wisecrack and he gets furious. Lol. Still can’t figure it out. They looked like Mutt and Jeff. And she fed his ego daily. Even told him tht she didn’t know how he could be attracted to her bwcause he is ao good looking, in shape etc…. Put herself down while building up his ego so he really felt like a knight in shining armour

I was always the devoted husband and father…honest, open loving, affectionate and completely dedicated. I was always there for her and our children… emotionally and physically. I was a very good provider…great career that allowed me to achieve a good work/life balance. I always set aside time for us. I am told I am handsome and I am very physically fit and always made it a point to look good for her. I look much younger then my actual age.

Unlike some husbands, I always helped clean the house, did laundry, grocery shop, dishes, helped our kids with their homework…etc. I actually did more around the house then she did. I drove used cars so she could drive the new ones. She only wanted to work part time…that was fine with me. Her money was her money…my money paid for all of the household and living expenses as well as some of her bills. In short…I worshiped her…gave her everything I had.

Then she discovered and old crush from her past on Facebook. They went from texting to EA and then to PA in a short amount of time. He was a distant father to his children and not devoted to his wife. He was self employed…if you could call it that. He didn’t even make enough to pay for my wife’s shoe habit let alone support her. His wife was supporting their household with her income. He was all about going out and having a good time at the expense of his family life…a good time Charley. Since he was not really working, him and my wife had plenty of spare time during the day…they were living an a fantasy world…without a care, while his wife and I unknowingly supported them.

Yes…she affaired down. Actually, they both did. Both of them lack and value or integrity that are the measure of a real person. They also lack the ability to support themselves financially.

I ended up filing for divorce after trying to save what was left of our marriage for over 1 1/2 years. She basically did nothing to help repair the damage she caused. I never even got the whole, honest truth from her. I never even saw any real remorse.

After the divorce was final her OM dumped her…big surprise. Apparently it was fun as long as my wife was a free piece of azz and there were commitments to deal with.

Decimated, sorry you had such a horrible experience. I’m seeing a theme here. When you treat someone good, especially better than they deserve, they start thinking they really are “all that and a bag of chips “. They get really confident and think it has to do with them when it really just has to do with you and your integrity. I bet she never has it so good ever again.

I always thought that you should treat people the way you want to be treated and after you make a commitment…you give 100% but I found out that it isn’t always appreciated. Some people are born, or possibly raised to be takers…not givers. Some put there best foot forward for a while then revert to their natural state. Her and her boyfriend were birds of a feather in that respect. She did become super arrogant and selfish especially after her affair started. The distance between us started to grow and any respect for me vanished. As a result of this I tried even harder. I never felt so helpless…I tried everything.

It has been a long painful road but I now realize that it was all about her. There was nothing wrong with me and, it wouldn’t have mattered if I was the perfect husband or not…the end result was inevitable.

I now know that I will be fine…will survive. I have a lot of desirable qualities that a woman will hopefully cherish. I will not change who I am because of what she did. I will however draw a line in any future relationships in terms of giving and taking. If I feel an imbalance or selfishness I will not hesitate to make changes or leave.

I am becoming more optimistic with each day. I can’t help but think how wonderful life would be like with someone who is a giver like me. It gives me something to look forward to. However, I am not in a hurry to jump into a relationship yet. I need to complete the process of emotionally re-centering.

You are right. I doubt she will ever have it as good as she did with me. We were pretty comfortable. Although she did make out pretty good financially from the divorce…her life will be a lot more difficult especially after the alimony runs out.

I do think she will end up regretting her choices if she hasn’t already.

Decimated
This is such an interesting take on this issue. I never thought about it before. I did what I thought was everything to make my H’s life comfortable. I never nagged him about anything. I sorted his drawers and closets. Cleaned up after him. Made beautiful meals and kept the house spotless. I took care of all the bills and household maintenance. I was witty and interesting to his friends. He could work till late in the evening even though I had a beautiful meal cooked and waiting for him. If we went out to dinner it was because he wanted to and it had to always be another couple not just the two of us. HAHAHA I made myself a doormat under the guise of “being a good wife”. I didn’t pressure him about sex because I thought he was having age related issues with regards to his libido. How stupid was I. He was getting from someone else. Yep he was a taker too and I was too stupid to realize this until your post. Yes you did too much for her and made her life wayyyy to easy. You treated her too well. Made her feel too important. She needed to be knocked down a few notches. Sounds like that is what happened.

Now here is the good news. YOU SOUND FREAKING AWESOME!!!! You get to enjoy all your good Karma and you will have countless good women throwing themselves at you. You have learned a great deal about yourself and others at your expense both emotionally and financially. I hope and pray you find THE most wonderful person that you deserve. Don’t look back as a past failure. You were smart to cut your losses and move one. You have an opportunity to go find someone worthy of your goodness.

It sounds like we made some of the same mistakes. Wait, I take that back. It sounds like we are good people who were just not valued or appreciated anywhere near the level we deserved.

You know, the worst part about her affairing down was that it made me feel that much worse about myself. If her OM was lower then plant life, and he was, then what does that say about me? I must be absolutely worthless….right?

In my betrayed state of mind, I struggled with reasoning that if he was a young, super successful, handsome single guy than I could understand her affair and I could take some comfort in knowing that he was obviously a better choice and that I still had some value. How messed up is that!

I felt the same way when comparing myself to the OM. I feel my wife affaired down as well … She told him I was a “know-it-all” and didn’t think she could do nothing right when I was around. I even told her when I found out about the EA that she chose someone who was not as smart as me and an illiterate so she could have something in common with someone on her level! That was the anger speaking and I apologized to her sincerely, as she always had self-esteem issues and felt she was not as intelligent as me.

However in our case, my wife did everything that TryingHard did … She took excellent care of the household, our kids, and me. She is a very caring person, but fell into this vey dark place and started to feel sorry for herself, so looked to Facebook for her first love. She realizes now that that was a big mistake and once she came out of the fog, realized what she could lose. We are working very hard at making our marriage work, and when I don’t get angry or feel hurt, our marriage is he best it’s ever been! I’m sorry you couldn’t work things out with your wife, but think you’re on the right track! Best of luck!

Decimated

April 5, 2013

Good point. Mine said similar things to me. I do know that OM was jealous of me but I don’t know why…she never told me.

I remember my ex had said she never felt good enough or smart enough for me as well. I honestly don’t think I ever did or said anything consciously to make her feel like that. I am more educated then her but that was a result of a lot of hard work, dedication and perseverance…before we ever met. I assumed that was just part of the blame-shifting phase she went through. If she actually felt like that I would guess that it could be self-induced thinking and my have been a reflection of how she felt about herself after her affair…guilt/shame? She did seem to re-write our marital history to justify her actions. How she felt about herself could have been part of that process.

I wish my ex would have valued our marriage enough to put in some effort. I know it would had been difficult to deal with for a many, many years but we would most likely still be married if she did. It will still be difficult for me to deal with even being divorced.

I think my ex didn’t re-engage in our marriage after I discovered her affair because she was still in contact with OM even though she insisted that she wasn’t. I did find out later that she was. So she was in the fog the entire time I was trying to save what was left of us…1 1/2 years of limbo. Talk about a waste of emotional effort.

I am also certain that her affair was a part of a bigger mid-life crisis. She changed after she lost both of her parents…several months apart. With in that year she joined Facebook, re-connected with OM, and started cheating. Their deaths seemed to trigger on a re-evaluating of her life, thoughts of morality and a re-alignment of priorities. I don’t feel her affair was just a temporary loss of direction as some affairs seem to be. It was part of a major re-evaluation.

Xterra

April 5, 2013

Yeah, I never, ever made my wife feel like she wasn’t as educated as I was. She tells everyone that she hopes our children turn out like me! I think you’re right in saying she used this argument to justify her feelings towards me and justify the EA.
I’m not sure if she was re-evaluating her life, but she was definitely re-evaluating our marriage and she “felt” there had to be a better way. Thankfully she realized that she always had what she was wishing for, just too blind to see. As she says “the grass isn’t greener”.

exercisegrace

April 8, 2013

Xterra, sorry to have to see you on this board, but it is a great place of support. Glad to see you guys are able to work on it. It is hard but gaining the insight of others on this board has been invaluable to me.

Xterra

April 8, 2013

I totally agree EG! It’s only been 3 months since I found out about the EA, but find that the info and advice have been invaluable in helping me heal, as well as helping my wife.

exercisegrace

April 8, 2013

Good point! Yes, I have often been given a completely different perspective by things I read on here, and then can share with my husband.

tryinghard

April 5, 2013

Yes because that is the acceptable cliche right? When bad things happen we try to explain it away. And them going for a better person than us makes total sense to everyone including the betrayed, Yes if that person were better then we could accept some of the blame and fix it. We have to keep reinforcing, it’s not us, it’s them that are broken or stupid or both.

I’m choosing to stay (ULK again) because I do see remorse, shame, a sincere change. BUT I’ve changed too and he isn’t liking that too much in some regard. I do not mother what so ever any more. I used to be a great cook. DONE. His closets were totally organized. NOPE. He better damn well check in with me before committing to a golf date! Even better, I get sex whenever I want it which is often. AND I’m FIRST!!! WHOOOOHOOOO. So ok can you so visualize this 50 something dressed up with heels, her whip and whistle “I said get it up!!!! “CRACK the whip “Ve have vays of making you perform!” LOL I crack myself up! OK nothing that far I just make sure he KNOWS I may be old but I’m not dead!!! Yes if I were to leave I would have no problem finding another maybe better person to spend the rest of my life with. My sons tell me their friends call me a MILF which I had to ask what that was and was totally embarrassed when they explained!!! Too old to be that but at my age I will take a compliment wherever I can get it! I have numerous qualities that would be appreciated. Did you see the movie “It’s Complicated” with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin and Meryl Streep? AB is the ex husband and he pretends like he’s changed and wants to get back with MS. In the beginning she likes the attention and they have a lot of sexual hysterical bonding. The ex, AB, seems genuinely changed but we know he isn’t he just wants back with “mama”.Then she meets Steve Martin who offers something totally new and fresh and fun and respectful. I keep thinking maybe there’s a Steve Martin out there for me somewhere and what am I doing wasting my time with this lying, cheating, bastard that I am with now?!?!?! Because I’m a chicken shit probably.

Good Luck to you. You won’t be single long..

forcryin'outloud

April 5, 2013

TH – the visions of the dominator had me cracking up!!!
I too love It’s Complicated and like you I wonder if there is a Steve Martin out there for me. I adore the croissant making scene. It’s so grown-up and sincere. AB is an impetuous buffoon – much like my H. It infuriates me that I find that attractive.
I don’t think you (or any of us BS) are chicken shit. I think we value our relationships, vows and the act of loving. I tell myself better to have loved deeply than not at all. I’m glad I walk in my shoes and not my H’s. I couldn’t face myself if I made those ridiculous choices. No wonder the are so angry, evasive and withdrawn during the affair. Unless your a serial cheating dirt bag you have to feel truly crappy about yourself everyday even if for only a second. So know that you like the others on here are my heroes. Each of you and your stories give me the strength to feel not alone and positive about myself. Long live the whip cracking MILF! LOL!!!

Decimated

April 5, 2013

Tryinghard, I am still laughing my ass off over here!!! You are one funny lady. I love what you said…all of it. You are the one who is awesome!!!

exercisegrace

April 8, 2013

Tryinghard. We sound so much alike. I supported my husband to the highest degree. I accepted long work hours, missing kids’ school and sports events, etc because he was supporting the family. With the exception of mowing, I took on all the household duties. I never even asked him to “watch” the kids for me. If I had to go somewhere or do something (read: doctor’s appt, I didn’t do things just for me)
I found someone to babysit. At the time it seemed normal. it’s just the way it was. I even set his clothes out for him each morning and put a clean towel on the rack. Little loving gestures. Which made it galling in the days immediately following discovery when he said he felt unloved and abandoned. He can see now that HE is the one who gradually created the distance by letting someone else in emotionally and eventually physically. it is painful for him now. He misses all those loving gestures that I can’t seem to muster up the emotional energy to do right now. He sees clearly NOW what he had.

Hello!
It has been a long time since i visited this site. However today i was pulled. Reading your comments, I realised one common thing from betrayed wives: we tend to focuse on physical appearance of OW. It is important for us not to focuse on that, because infidelity’s main reason is emotional, self- centered, self-serving and manipulative. And because of that the wrap of the package is not the indicator, but most importantly the package in itself. Therefore, all the participants lack self-reflection, self-restraint, they are like spoilt children doing whatever makes them temporarily feel good without thinking about consequences for them and/or effect it has on people around them.

Another aspect is that cheaters tend to have troubled childhood: parents with their own issues, etc. And that comes out at some point in their lives, and cheaters self-pity, self -centeredness exceeds leading to infidelity. And as someone said above, only people with low values get envolved with married people. They are mirror images of the emotional state of cheaters.

It is really important to not compare us to OW or OM: it is not even worth wasting our breath and time on something not defining us!
Have wonderful weekend!

Hi Lea,
I agree with some of your comments, but I don’t think my wife (CS) had a troubled childhood. She has explained that it was pure selfishness for her to have the EA. She admits she thought of no one’s feelings but hers and his … She lived for the excitement and ego boost. I am extremely thankful that she snapped out of it right away and turned all her energy to me.

And TryingHard, you go Momma! Put yourself first or a change! Awesome!

My ex had some trouble in her childhood. Her father was an alcoholic and a cheater. He was also emotionally unavailable to his family…would rather be out drinking with his buddies. My ex never had a healthy relationship with her father. After her mother finally divorced him, she started going out to bars often and having lots relationships with different men and bringing them home. My ex saw all of this while she was growing up.

Xterra and Descimated
I really feel for you guys because I think you have it harder. You need to know that women put A LOT more into the fantasy than the cheating men. We learn this from childhood. Cinderella blah blah blah. Rag Mags tell us how to be beautiful, sexy etc to attrack our prince charming. Hell it was on the news the other day that women going to Princeton should be looking for a husband as well as their degree while there because that was the BEST chance of finding the “right” guy. Women will leave the marriage emotionally before getting into an affair. It is really too difficult for a woman to compartmentalize and share their emotions with two people like I believe and have read, that men seem to be able to do. We are focused on relationships. I’m sure there’s some that will disagree with my generalizing and stereotyping so I am only speaking generally for women. So if you wife is or has been in an extra marital relationship she’s in it heart and soul and it will be a ton of work to get her out of it unless she truly sees what an asshole the OM is and what a huge mistake she made by shitting in her nest! Xterra sounds like this is true for your W. You are lucky and I HOPE she’s not still fantasizing about the OM. I’m just sayin…

Descimated
The OM is jealous of you because you are successful and he’s not. He had an affair with your W because it made him feel like more of a man. You know “look at me this guy has it all and is all that but I am effing his wife, what does that say about me”. You know like those animal shows where the inferior male stalks the herd and tries to get one of the females when the Alpha male isn’t looking? He’s trailer park trash. He’s an effete loser that can only prove himself as a man with what he thinks is his sexual prowess. And he knows exactly what to say to your wife to make her give him what he wanted and that was to screw YOU over! That’s why when you kicked her to the curb he dumped her. As a man this is one way he could feel superior because he knows he’s a loser. What an asshole and what a dolt your wife was to fall for that bull crap.

OK so they had bad childhoods. Whatever. By all accounts and by today’s standards I guess I could say the same thing. My parents spanked me A LOT. Now they’d say it was child abuse, it wasn’t. That’s just excuses and holds no water for me AND is a total waste of time and energy. GROW THE F… UP I want to scream at all these people tearing other peoples lives apart.

The Cinderella thing and how women put more into the fantasy then men. That was her all the way. She made the fantasy happen. I think she pursued this clown with enthusiasm. She idealized him in her mind, exaggerating all the good points about him and dismissing all of the bad. At the same time she dismissed all of the good in our marriage…re-wrote our history to justify her actions. The sad thing is she doesn’t realize it.

You are so right about him too. He is a POS loser! She was an idiot to fall for his crap. But she wanted him too so it wasn’t so much her buying his line of crap…she was pursuing him as well. She wanted what I provided…security, family…etc. She also wanted the fantasy of him. She wanted everything and because of her selfishness…she felt entitled to it.

Funny thing…OM dumped my ex after I divorced her. OM’s wife ended up divorcing him as well. They were now both divorced and free to see each other without any worries but he still dumped her…interesting.

My wife reached out to the OM (her first love) and put all of her energy into the EA instead of our marriage. Luckily it was only 4 months and it was online, but it did cause a lot of damage.

And yes TryingHard, I do consider myself very lucky that she snapped out of it right away and was truly remorseful, regretful, and recommitted to our marriage. My wife has admitted to wanting her cake and eating it as well, but things quickly fell into perspective once her EA was exposed. The OM was cheating on his wife as well … I told my wife she could go to him, but said that she didn’t want him then once the fantasy was over.

The EA portion of my ex’s affair is actually what killed our marriage…not the PA. As a man, the PA is what drove me crazy with mind movies…and still does. The thought of her with another man is devastating to say the least and knowing it went on for over 1 1/2 years…excruciating! The EA is what really destroyed us as a couple. The emotions and intimacy of her affair changed her forever and her her lack of commitment afterward sealed the deal. I don’t feel she will ever be the same. That is why I finally gave up and filed. I could not stay with her and expect to receive anything more than scraps of intimacy or honesty in the foreseeable future.

I find myself being jealous of betrayed spouses that had CS’s that returned to the marriage with real remorse. Isn’t that sad that I would have settled for that? Of course I’m sure we would have all preferred no affair at all.

Decimated,
It has not really been easy road, because truth to be said, in my case, after d-day my h left to live with ow. After he finally decided to reconcile, it has been another kind of nightmare. Because though he was trying, the only things he could talk back then was how awful ow feels because he left her, how perfect relationship they had, etc. etc. It lasted more than 3 months, and only after that he started really being present in our relationship.
It is not easy, it requires patience, and strong belief that all will be fine.

Decimated, I just wanted to add my voice of sympathy for what you have been through. I completely agree with tryinghard. She hit it dead on. Women MUST spin out the fantasy. It is what allows them to cheat. They tell themselves it must be “love” or they wouldn’t be doing what they are doing. Guys are more able to separate out the fact that they getting some need met, and they don’t necessarily think of that as love, and they almost NEVER want to leave their wife and be with the affair partner. They generally don’t see the affair partner as any kind of “ideal” or someone to ride off into the sunset with. Women play out the fantasy of “the one” or “star-crossed lovers”. And when the reality check comes, it is ugly.

That is why my husband seems totally focused on rebuilding after he ended his affair, and why two years later we are still being cyber-stalked and bullied.

As you have already seen, this is the nicest group of people you wish you had never had to meet!

Women do build up the fantasy of the affair…mine did. She had constructed this whole fantasy life around this guy. She was imagining holidays and vacations with him and even our children playing together…really? I asked her if she really thought that our children would ever except OM our his kids. She had no response to that question as if she never really thought about that part.

Even thought OM supposedly dumped her, I get the feeling that she thinks they will find each other again in the future and be together, Even if she isn’t thinking that way, she has still left our marriage behind.

I do feel OM was meeting some of her needs but I could never find out what they were from her. I do think I was meeting most of her needs and OM only a few but she placed a premium on those few of exaggerated the importance of them. She would never admit if she actually loved him. I had asked her many times and her answers always ranged from “no” to “I don’t know”. I have read thousands of messages between her and OM that I got from OM’s wife. At one point, OM asked My ex who she loved more…Decimated or him. She responded you (OM) of coarse.

I might add that these messages were the most painful stuff I have ever had to digest. There was enough detail to make me sick…physically. I could only read for a few minutes at a time. I would have to walk away from the computer in order to get a hold on myself emotionally. She was a different person to him then she was to me. She was trying to be his fantasy as well.

Decimated
I have read that the PA is much harder on the BS male than the BS woman. The EA is much harder on the BS female than the BS male. LOL lucky me I got both. Kinda like having the flu and stomach flu at the same time. I digress.

Yes your wife does believe she is in love with the OM. She sounds like she lives in Fantasyville. I’ll bet when your wedding was coming around all she could talk about was being the center of attention and the princess for the day. ULK I used to do flowers for weddings. I hate brides! All that “it’s my special day” crap. I’m sure you were a wonderful husband and you fulfilled all her needs however these women it is never enough. They constantly need that attention and prince Charming. If you lack one iota of that fantasy they go somewhere else. She always has to be regarded as “special”. It is such a drive that she risks everything. Yes she does believe your kids will accept him and he them because she only lives in her own fantasies. She has A LOT of growing up to do because that whole princess crap wears thin on most adults!!! I hope you can see what a better place you are in without her. Yes you will have to deal with her because of the kids and that is important but more importantly is to look at yourself and make sure you don’t choose another woman with this kind of personality disorder again (hear me young man??? 🙂 )

Seriously this is a mistake we make over and over again. We get out of one relationship and I’ll be damned if we don’t go and choose another person with the same defects. It sounds like you’ve gained a lot of knowledge about yourself along the way. Maybe some books on co-dependence would help you too.

Those messages, emails even the most innocuous are devastating. What makes me sick is what my H gossiped to her about me. WTF why couldn’t he leave me out of it? What kind of man gossips about someone who takes care of him? Well now I don’t take care of him. We are on equal footing. I work full time now and if he wants to eat dinner well he has to help make it. OK I do his laundry, BUT I SWEAR THAT’S IT!!! ok and his ironing…..ULK I’m hopless.

Hang in there you are on the right road by cutting that princess loose. There’s a real Queen out there ready to give as good as she gets!

Strengthrequired

April 8, 2013

Your right th, my h ow honestly believed my kids would love her, and want her over me. She thought my h wouldn’t mind having her after her h. She thought she could wipe me off the ace of the earth and no one would notice.
My sil, who my bil left as year too, has found a new man, and guess what? He apparently looks like my bil.

I do hope this one works for her.

Xterra

April 9, 2013

Decimated:
Sounds similar to my wife. She and the OM made “fantasy” plans to go away to a resort down south or secluded cabin to just have sex she said. My wife said they could never have gotten away with going away together. They did an awful lot of texting and talked about sex a lot … We have an amazing sex life, so I’m assuming they talked about sex for his sake and that this was the hook that kept him tied to her.

She did tell him she loved him, but assures me that as soon as she said it, she regretted it. I found a couple of conversations that, to me, indicated their love for each other. But after the fog lifted, she says that what they shared wasn’t love, more like infatuation. I guess I have to believe that in order to move on. I too found reading all those texts and messages hard to bear, but felt it was necessary in order to get the truth.

Decimated

April 9, 2013

I’m happy that her fog lifted for you Xterra.

There was a lot of texting, sexting and I’m sure naked pictures being sent back and forth. She would never admit to the pictures but they made reference to them in their messages. A lot of their messages would start out innocuous but would evolve into sex talk. This part really pisses me off because I was always flirting with her. She would rarely flirt back. Sometimes she would even act like I was annoying her but when he did it…it was OK. I might also add that after reading his words to her, he said nothing special, clever, or particularly interesting. He was no cognitive giant or a smooth wordsmith. There was no poetry or anything like that. In fact, some of their convos sounded like teenagers talking with lots of emoticons…symbols, hearts, smileys…etc.. I feel my ex was projecting what she wanted to hear…the fantasy. He was always calling her “beautiful” and she referred to him as “gorgeous” yet what I would tell her she was beautiful she would dismiss the compliment. She Never called me gorgeous. About once a year she would say I looked handsome. In my mind, I would rather be called gorgeous every day then handsome once a year.

Xterra

April 9, 2013

Too eerily similar! She sent him pictures as well – when asked why she sent him so many pictures, she told me that “he was very convincing and she couldn’t say no to him” … this was because she felt she needed to do as he asked for fear of losing him! One of these pictures was titled “Just out of the shower” … I asked if she had sent him any pics of herself naked, and she replied that “not at this time” … so after more needling, she admitted showing her body in a Skype call and they m, masturbated for each other! She admitted she was only going to show him her tits, because (as she says) “he teased her about her breast size and wanted to prove to him how much they have grown”! Sounds like teenagers, don’t you think? And she too sent a lot of emoticons: hugs, kisses, hearts, etc. She even had 2 names for his penis!! There are none for mine, thankfully!

She also sent him videos of special songs – one when they first met 23 years ago, and another that made her think of him. She had so many “inspirational” messages posted on her Facebook for him, that you would think she was a love-sick teenager and not a married-mother-of-2-40-something year old! I asked her why she had an affair with him 23 years ago when he had a pregnant girlfriend – she replied “She was young and foolish, now she was old and foolish”.

This guy couldn’t spell to save his life, but I guess the words “beautiful, sexy, gorgeous, and loving” don’t need to be spelled right – she got the gist and they fed her ego – she has always had low self-esteem. Whenever I told her that she was beautiful, she dismissed my comments as well.

After I found out about the EA, I asked her if she could remember the last time she touched me; not in a sexual way, but just a caress, touching my back before we went to sleep, etc, and she said she couldn’t remember the last time it happened. I told her I couldn’t remember it either. She tried to say that I didn’t touch her either … I reminded her that I touched her in some way every single day, whether it was a pat on the bum, giving her a kiss, or putting my arm around her when we fell asleep. It’s funny how they forget the little, happy things and only focus on what they perceive as the bad things in their lives.

Decimated

April 9, 2013

Yes Xterra…very sadly similar.

My ex did the virtual masturbation thing too. They even shared their favorite porn sites. They had a secret folder on Facebook that only the two of them had access to so I can only guess what surprises they put in there for each other. She never sent or shared with me anything like that of a sexual nature and certainly never sent me any naked pictures of herself. It is sad because of all the sexting and porn they shared the knew exactly what the other wanted sexually and were able to fulfill each others fantasies. She never wanted to talk about that stuff with me. I always wanted to because I felt like I was guessing when it came to satisfying her. She gave him the manual on how to please her so it was easy for him. I was left in the dark to guess.

Touching…yes. I experienced the same thing with mine. Once she reconnected with OM, I was physically avoided. Sex dropped off to less then 3 times a month from 2-3 times a week and her effort disappeared and she stopped initiating completely. It had become duty sex for her. She stopped kissing me as well. I would make love to her but she wouldn’t reciprocate. She also stopped touching me with her hands. I was no longer met by the door when I came home from work with a hug and a kiss. Before OM entered the picture we always kissed each other good night. She stopped doing that even though I still kissed her. The hugs and hand holding stopped too. I remember one time in particular, I wanted to hold her hand while we were watching a TV show together. She pulled it away and said that I was being too clingy…really? Too clingy? We always used to spoon in bed while we drifted off to sleep. She began to minimize that by complaining and moving away. Then one day she went out and bought a big body pillow and surprise…it was always between us in bed like a barrier. I grew to hate that thing.

Xterra

April 9, 2013

It’s strange, but the quality and quantity of sex didn’t change. We kissed each other goodnight every night and when I would leave the house or went away on work trips. So I’m guessing that she only played the sex game for his benefit? She admitted she thought of him only twice while we had sex, but is questioning now how she could have had these thoughts about another man.

I do a fair bit of travelling with my work, she told him that she used to miss me in the beginning, but didn’t anymore because it was more relaxing and less stressful with me gone. But I guess when I was gone, it was “their” time. She admitted that she would start texting/sexting as soon as I left and this continued until she went to bed. She is a stay-at-home mom and has a business in our home, so they had lots of time to sext when it wasn’t busy. As I mentioned on this site before, I’m lucky that they live in separate cities because they would have met and I’m sure they would have had sex, but she says they wouldn’t have. Yeah right!

We have both recommitted to each other and it’s true that if you can survive the affair, and really work on your marriage, it can be better than it was in the beginning. I know you don’t want to hear that and I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you, but keep your head up, things always have a way of working out.

Decimated

April 9, 2013

The quality and quantity dropped steadily when she started with OM. It stopped completely when I found out about them. We never experienced any hysterical bonding that you read about so much. I don’t travel much for work in fact I think I only went out of town on business once during that time for a couple days. Of course that didn’t matter because OM lived only 4 miles away. I know she was at his house, hotels, cars, parking lots, parks, bars…etc. She claims OM has not been to our house. Of course, I don’t believe that for a second. If she was cold enough to bang him in his marital home and in my car, that she drives around our children in, then our doing him in our home was most likely not given a second thought. She would never admit anything. I found all of this out from their messages but they only spanned 3 months of their 1 1/2 year affair.

I am sincerely happy for you Xterra. I have read that in can be so much better after reconciliation…and I believe it. I guess it just wasn’t Gods plan for me. It’s OK to hear this has happened for other couples. I honestly wish it could have happened for me as well…and that makes me sad. I am slightly comforted by the fact that I did everything I could to save us.

Tryinghard

April 11, 2013

What the hell. I can’t believe that middle aged women would actually take there clothes off on line. Do they not know that it can be replayed and reported anytime again without them knowing it. Also are they that sure about how good they look nude for the whole world to see. I asked my husband if he ever felt self conscious about undressing in front of a stranger and not be judged. He said no it didn’t occur to him and he didn’t feel self conscious . I said I was surprised. He’s a man in his 50’s, overweight and let’s just say not as firm as he used to be. He said she was no prize either naked. Shouldn’t we all be a little self conscience at a certain age? It’s just weird. This convo caused a little bit of a fight. He said I called him fat and ugly which I didn’t. I’ve grown used to his flaws where someone else might not be. She saw dollar signs when he got nude so I guess she could look past a lot of it.

Strengthrequired

April 11, 2013

Trying hard, I can’t imagine myself stripping off in front of another man, I’m too self conscious, just wouldn’t be comfortable. You know what, my h knows it too, that I wouldn’t. Maybe that’s why he feels safe with me. Yet the ow, had no trouble taking her top off in front of my h. So it makes me wonder, how she could after only separating from her h not long before setting her sights on my h. She was with her h for 20 yrs, yet she easily took her top off in front of my h. God knows what elsemshe took off in her attempts at stealing my h affections. Yet then I guess too, she was looking at the $$$$$ too. Btw this is a religious women too, I guess faith goes out the window too, they seem to forget what’s right and wrong when they sets their sights on someone.

I guess dignity falls out the window pretty quickly for some people.

Xterra

April 14, 2013

Hi TryingHard,
My wife is very self-conscious of the way she looks as well. We have 2 children and her body shows the signs of our family. But the OM had said all the things she wanted to her and make her feel good about her body. He knew how to play her emotions and get her to do what he wanted – don’t get me wrong, she was an active participant. When I found out about the Skype sex, I asked her if she knew that he could have recorded it; she was a bit shocked and explained that he told her Skype was just like a phone call and would end after they hung up. She’s not that tehnologically inclined.

Like I also mentioned earlier, she only intended to show her breast, and the whole episode must have been exciting, taboo, etc that he convinced her to masturbate for him and she got him to do the same for her. As a couple, we had never done anything like this, so it bothers me that she did it all for him.

Strengthrequird

April 5, 2013

So sorry decimated, you sound like the perfect h, I don’t understand why some women just aren’t satisfied, when they have everything right in front of them. Sorry you went through this.
It is no big surprise that the om left her. He wasn’t about to leave his wife, his family.

I hope you find your happy ending soon, look after yourself, you know you did all you could to save your marriage.

I have always thought about others feelings, I too raised treat others how you would expect to be treated. Now I will say I am a bit more hard hearted. Probably the inner protection mechanism working overtime.

It’s funny how things like this help define your life, sometimes in a good way, because you become more wiser especially after a huge hurt.

Since this happened to me, al of a sudden I woke up and thought, what am I going to do with my life?
Because I am a stay t home mum, although help my h with our business, all I thought was, I can’t be putnin this position again, where I can’t support my children, because he wants another woman. So I woke up one day, truly knowing what it was I was meant to do.

I’m going to get my Bachelor of social studies in counseling, to become a qualified counsellor then do my further study and get my master in social work. I was looking at doing bachelor of psychology then master of psychology, but changed my mind as I really wanted the counselling, which is where my heart is.

I like to tell my h, how I want to help people, who have been through all the ups and downs of their life like I have, help them through trauma and loss etc. I tell him you see I want to help people, not hurt them like your ow.

He tells me that’s why he loves me so much because I am a good woman. So it has me wonder what the crap did he like about the ow, because it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with her being a good person, a good person doesn’t go in and try tom destroy a family.

I don’t know if I was the perfect husband but I never stopped trying. My marriage and family were that important to me…I wanted to put in 100% because I valued them. I think she did have it pretty good. I wanted her to feel good about our life together. One of the reasons I put so much effort into our life was because I was married once before…24 years ago. The marriage only lasted for a little over a year. My first wife cheated on me as well…with a co-worker. I found out almost immediately and because we were only married a short time and had no children; I divorced her with out hesitation. I didn’t want to build a life with her on a cracked foundation. It hurt for a long time but it was a good decision in my mind.

The sad thing is my wife knew all about the cheating that destroyed my first marriage. She knew the pain I endured as a result. We had many discussions about infidelity and she swore she could never do that to someone…and would never do that to me. She would even refer to my first wife as a whore. After going through that in my first marriage I was very careful about whom I dated. I was always looking for red flags. I guess I failed to lean that sometimes people just change. Oh, her OM did dump her…and his wife too.

So I have endured the pain of infidelity twice in my life…by the only 2 women I have ever loved and trusted. The latest being far worse then the first. I have often asked myself and God why did this happen to me? I always thought I was a good person…honest, caring, loyal…etc. I wonder if I will ever know the answer. I doubt I will ever get married again as a result of these betrayals. I only hope that I can learn to trust again. As of now, I wonder if that is even possible. I would hope that this these horrible experiences would make me wiser in some way. Unfortunately, I feel they have just defined me….but as what?

It is good that you are focusing on yourself and going back to school. This will help you build your self esteem. I would do the same except I am over educated enough. I do need to build my self esteem up though. Right now it couldn’t be much lower. I put on a good act for my kids but I am really a mess inside. I cannot honestly see myself letting anyone get emotionally close to me in the foreseeable future.

Dec
Sometimes people talk the talk but can’t walk the walk right? Maybe I should cut my H some slack. He doesn’t really want to talk about it although he has. He doesn’t understand why I want to know the details or why I ask the same questions. He doesn’t want to read any books on the subject and even says he is repressing the memory AND, a huge AND, his actions are genuine. He talks to me more about everything, except emotions or feelings but he never did, he shows me in all ways how much he loves me. Our marriage is different but I think in some ways he wants it to go back to the way it was before, it won’t.

Yep this is the second go round for me too except IT IS WITH THE SAME BASTARD!!!! I think we are too ready to give people the benefit of the doubt. We think most people are good and we get taken advantage of. We try so hard to intellectualize this betrayal and I think that is futile. When it comes right down to it, it happened because 1. they wanted to 2. it was available 3. they are flawed, immature, weak, egocentric etc. Now the trick is, how do we not attract any more fools like that, right? I don’t blame you for not wanting to marry. What the hell for? But you also shouldn’t put all women in the same category. Not all of us are as immature as the two you had the bad luck to find. So pay attention, next time a women says too much in this regard, remember Shakespere, “…me thinks she doth protest too much…!

Slack? If he is a 2 time offender…I wouldn’t. Keep doing what you are doing. He has to earn you back! I loved your post a while back. Make him work his ass off for you…and remember, you come first 🙂 This is interesting because I always made sure my ex came first. I used to literally worship that woman in bed. It wasn’t uncommon to spend over an hour getting her there. I would wake up the next day and my tongue would actually be sore! But I didn’t mind as long as she was satisfied. Sorry if TMI…but it’s true.

Mine didn’t want to talk about anything. It was like pulling teeth to get her to utter one sentence about her affair…even when I had proof. I asked for certain details, details that I needed to know…but I never got those. I have read at least a dozen books on infidelity, marriage and reconciliation as well as countless articles on the web. As far as I know she has read nothing. I bought a book for her to read on how to help heal you spouse after your affair. It was only a hundred pages long. She read the first 3 pages and proclaimed that it was bullshit because the author described an affair as being like marriage and family murder. I guess she took offence to that analogy.

My ex never opened up to me afterward. She kept our conversations remained shallow and insignificant…no real intimacy. She never showed my with her actions either. I know now that for at least a year after I discovered her affair, she was still in contact with him…at the very least. She made no effort to be transparent with her whereabouts or to make me feel safe and desired. Hell, she seemed to do the opposite of what I needed at every turn. She never would open her Facebook or email passwords to me. She kept her laptop and phone locked at all times. Even small stuff like commenting on how cute or hot actors were on TV shows and movies. Even small stuff like this would hurt me. She kept adding guy friends on Facebook and going for GNO’s at every opportunity.

“We try so hard to intellectualize this betrayal and I think that is futile. When it comes right down to it, it happened because 1. they wanted to 2. it was available 3. they are flawed, immature, weak, egocentric etc.”

I’ve been cheated on by every female I’ve dated all the way back to 10th grade, with my wife I thought I found someone different, it just took her 23 years to rip my heart out, I don’t think any woman can be trusted given the right circumstances. Sorry, that’s just how I see things now.

Decimated, I can believe your ex w, she knew all you have been through and did it herself. Of course what she did is far worse, you had settled into life with her, had children, treated her like she was the most cherished possession and she still did what she did.
Trust is hard to build, I’m trying hard, I have stood by my h side for 22yrs, we had so many people against us from the start, all his family, my family accepted and loved him from the beginning. There have been attempts at Trying to break my h and I apart several times over the years but my h kept strong, until his midlife crisis, they struck him when he was low and tried him when he was vulnerable and it almost worked.
Sometimes I look for truths over lies, sometimes I look for lies over the truths, sometimes I just want to give up, but what stops me is that I love my h and my family too much.
I find that I m exhausted, sometimes I look at all the attempts that his family have put against us, the latest being his cousin, I think to myself, what’s next? Can I deal with the next attempt? When will it just stop? Why can’t they just leave us alone? As I said 6 children and they still try, not his parents though, apparently I have been able to prove myself to them a long time ago.
My h still works long hours, more than ever before, stays away over night here and there each week, because of the long travel time because we moved, I just couldn’t handle living where I was anymore.
So he is trying to rebuild our business after the ea. Yet it is hard, I’m trying to trust like I used to, but finding it difficult to. I feel terrible because he is doing it for us, and I even tell him to stay away because I don’t want anything o happen to him on the road, but sometimes I to myself, if something happens again, it will be my fault because I told him to stay because I wanted him safe.
It was so much easier before the ea, because I trusted what we had together, he always stood up for me and never let anyone hurt me, until his ea. He ended up being the one that hurt me more than anyone else in my life, the man I trusted more than anyone, and it was all by the hands of his family, his damn cousin.
My self esteem was low before, due to depression of my own, after having my last bub, that just made it worse.
So I am no model wife, I put my life on hold to be with our children, I supported him in all of his business decisions, I do the bookkeeping and office work, even while he left to figure himself out. I gave him space to work on fixing himself, would only talk to him for business or children, nothing else. She offered him no space.
She blamed my h for not helping her through getting away from her h (she wasn’t with her h when they got together) she got angry with him for not moving in with her and choosing to stay with his family. Yet their ea still continued, until a few months ago apparently, I think he struggled with trying not to break his cousins heart because she was supposed to be family.
Yet here I sit wondering, am I still being played for the fool, all because I am kind hearted and love my h so much. Things I see from my h say that he is honoring his word to me, but it is my trust that is holding me back from truly believing.
My heart asking me can I live through this again? Are we really meant to be together because of all the attempts to break us, is it someone trying to tell my h and I something. I don’t know what the answer is to any of my questions. All I know is that I didn’t marry this man with the option of leaving him if ii didn’t like anything, I married him because it was for better or worse, I gave him my life, through thick and thin, because I wanted to spend my life with him forsaking others.
I didn’t take my vows as just words they were taken seriously.
I’m not the perfect person, nor do I try to be something I am not, all I wanted was to be loved by my h and to love him back for the rest of my life.
Now I have this hanging over my head everyday, instead of my h letting his family know to back off like he used to, now I have, what will it be that they do that finally breaks us? Instead of seeing my h as strong and the protector of my heart, I see someone that can truly break it, because he has broken it. Yet granted he too can be what heals my heart too.
It’s a stupid roller coaster, I wish I still lived in the fantasy land that my h would never hurt me, not ever.
So I guess now, going back to school since my life has been on hold, is now is more for me to find myself again, be e independent woman I was, and to give me some dignity back while I help others.
Yet can you believe, I sit here wondering should I be furthering my education in a direction that helps my h and our business, how is that, I still put my h first, above everyone else, because I want to help him somehow.

I believe the only thing this broad (I refuse to call her the Other Woman and give her equal billing with me)Had over me is that I gained weight after the birth of my daughter and was no longer skinny. I’m assuming she was if he had anything to do with her, cause he is very shallow.

Strength, my husband did the same thing. However, seeing that the OW was a friend of ours and the family, my in laws new all a out the affair over a year before I did. She told my mother in law everything as well as my sister in law and her friends. I was shocked to the core to realize they all knew and never said a word. Talk about humiliating. I have a cordial relationship with my mother in law now for the sake of my husband. I don’t speak to my sis in law or her friends. It’s been over 15 months. He told that cow a lot of things about me and our sex life answer she told everyone. She was trying to line up alliances while she moved in for the kill. It almost worked too. I guess the whole lot of them didn’t realize that I loved my husband more than anything and I stood by him. Like you said ” he wasn’t himsellf”. Definitely a mid life crisis. My mil finally apologized and things have been cool but cordial. So humiliating at family events. You have no idea

I can only imagine and empathize w/ your MIL issues. My psycho nut case MIL encouraged my H’s affair too. The lousy excuse for a grandmother even watched our child so my H could go out with his skanky HS GF.(Her involvement goes further but I would be typing for days.) She still refuses to apologize, said she didn’t do anything wrong. I no longer have a relationship w her nor does my child. She’s certifiably nuts in my book.

The OW in my case is slimmer and more athletic, but I think the real reason is that she pumps his ego said things like “I cant believe you make time to talk with me”, etc. I have found evidence that their affair never really stopped for a time as I was led to believe. I had already found evidence that has been a PA for at least the last 6 months. I am working to get my finances in better order, complete a refi and some overdue tax filings before revealing what I know. It is taking longer than I thought, but will do what it takes to protect myself as best I can. I know the OW does not really love him. If she did after 18 months they would be trying to be together permanently. This is just about her having a bit on the side, some adventure and their favorite hotel is just 6min from where her h works… Bet she flies him the bird on the way by for bing a workaholic. I am the one who really loves him and has supported him in many ways for 21 years, 18 as his wife. Yet he chooses a woman who is just his puppetmaster and talks of caring for her family. But spends her time in parking lots, forest preserves and hotel rooms with someone else’s husband. She is in it for herself, calm calculated and collected. He is a lovesick puppy dog and a fool.

You are in such a hard place and you have my prayers. You sound well-focused, and like you are doing exactly what you need to do for yourself. I think too, that sometimes, as hard as it is to do, they need to be given enough rope to hang themselves with. given enough time, they will see that what they are chasing is an illusion. The big question is, once they go back to pick up the diamond they threw down for the dog turd…..will it still BE there??

My mother in law and father in law and sis in law all knew about the affair. It was a family friend. They never said a word to me, however, they continued to attend family affairs with the OW. I didn’t know about the affair and at family gatherings. My husband was quite attentive to me as usual. After finding out about the affair. I felt humiliated that I was being ridiculed behind my back in front of everyone. My Inlaws accepted te situation and my MIL actually tried to console the other woman when I found out. I don’t talk to my sis in law at all anymore an have a social relationship with his parents to keep the peace. It should be said that my mother in law is a bible toting Christian. Hah

Cindy
You are better woman than I. How on earth do you bite your tongue that much? My MIL accused me of stealing from her. When my H left me she was happy and had a lot of nasty things to say until she found out that a divorce would affect HER income. She changed her tune then. I don’t give two figs about her but I too have to “play nice”. It totally patronizing. She could die tomorrow and I wouldn’t shed a tear! Your MIL is a bible toting HYPOCRITE. It just galls me when people misbehave in the name of Jesus Christ. I hope all their daughters get betrayed by their spouses. You know “..sins of their fathers…” and all that. Wonder what she’d say about that. She’s probably so holier than thou she thinks it couldn’t happen!

Cindy and Tryinghard. I admire both of you for taking the high road and maintaining any kind of relationship with these women. On the plus side, it’s good to know where people really stand, who can be trusted and who cannot. Cindy, I would ask her to quote scripture to support her view of infidelity being acceptable. I am a Christian too, and the bible is VERY clear about adultery, LOL. I would also tell her to love the sinner but HATE the sin and if she knows better than God, well show me in HIS word where adultery isn’t a sin.

Talk about MIL! During reconciliation my h told me that after he moved in with ow, he called his mother for advice. And guess what she said?! She is really happy that he left me! And the way he told me, it sounded that he was disappointed to hear that from her. And apologized to me. There was SIL who encouraged ow, and befriended her, and this SIL told everybody how happy my h is with ow. I don’t talk to her, even when we meet.
The difficult situations really show who is really next to you. And truth to be told, i am a foreigner in his country, and except his MIL and SIL, all the other family members supported me and our kids.

EG
Thanks but is it the high road when you think bad thought :0? I feel like such and insincere bitch. I’ve never been one to care what people think of me but after all it is his mother, good or bad. I also didn’t know early in my marriage that you were NEVER to say anything bad about them even though he called them every name in the book. I could win an academy award for the performance I put on where they are concerned. I even feign interest and sympathy to him with regards to his parents. I don’t think God is too happy with me about that. I don’t like them I don’t hate them but when they finally leave this earth I will be doing a quite happy dance!!! My luck they will out live me. Only the good die young!

My SIL befriended ow as well. The entire side of his family went to OW birthday party while affair was going on! It is really really hard to act civilized in front on my MIL. She even went so fr as to tell me that she is happy with all the changes I made to keep her son happy!! Omg. He is the one tht made changes. He is aware tht he is the one that ruined my relationship with his mother and sister and feels real remorse over it. He wishes we could forget about it and move on. I will NEVER forget how they stabbed me in the back.

isn’t It amazing, and pathetic, that so many of these cheaters seem to get no moral guidance from it’s most important source, their parents ? I had hoped to get some moral support from my MIL hoping she could help my H se e what he was doing to our family. At first she believed me, then she acted like I was tcrazy one. “I’ve been accused of stuff I didnt do, too.,” Then she said “I’m not in this”… What, you can’t even commit to telling your married son he shouldn’t run around with whores behind his wifes back? I can see where a lot of this crap originates…

I agree, Giz! As I’ve posted, my MIL told my H what he’d done wasn’t a ‘big deal,’ that ‘lots’ of people do it, and that for all he knew I’d probably had an affair too since I’m ‘attractive’ and ‘travel a lot.’ She’s also said since that I should just ‘get over it’; she’s never once told my H he did anything wrong; and she’s said that if I can’t forgive him, then I must not be a very good person. Gee, thanks; nothing like kicking a gal when she’s down.
When my father had an affair and left my mother, his parents — my mother’s in-laws — behaved very differently. My grandmother, his mother, was furious with him for abandoning his family, chewed him out over it, took me and my sisters to her house for weeks at a time to give my mom a break, and refused to speak to my father — her only son — for several years. My grandfather, my mother’s father-in-law, took care of us in the evenings so that my mother could go back to school to train for a job, and kept trying (and failing) to persuade my father to give up the whore and return home. Maybe these are the actions of a different generation, or of people with a firmer sense of right-and-wrong?

My MIL said she could understand why he needed to find someone new to feel alive again. She also said I was silly for loving him and I should find someone else to love me. My H is definitely her son, says cruel things and everything is about what she wants. He is traveling in Europe with her now – and I was not included on the invitation. However, I think we all have free will and he is choosing to be his worst – not his best self. I will take high ground as much as possible because that is who I am, but I have to admit it is not as satisfying as being a vengeful bitch on wheels might be short term 😉

Honestly ladies, I had thought my parent inlaws had caused the almost breakup of my marriage, because I was never quite what they wanted for their son.
I thought they had pushed his cousin onto him so I would leave. Turned out they were so angry with my h, and even moreso with her. They cant believe that the ow, their family tried to break my family.
They even told my h he should be with his w.
That was the first time, I saw his parents in a different light. For the better not worse, I honestly thought they would have been rejoicing. Turned out it was just the aunties, uncles and cousins that were rejoicing over my betrayal.

Carol, I’m curious, how did your father’s cheating finally play out? I am here to tell you if my parents found out I did that, especially with a five year old child, there would have been hell to pay. My parents are dead so my husband dealt with no negative consequences. I imagine my daddy would have beat his ass. I’m enjoying this train of thought, lol. No sane family would condone, much less encourage adultery. Maybe divorce if the spouse is abusive or alcoholic or something, but definitely not cheating.

Well, my father divorced my mother and married the woman he’d had an affair with. That marriage absolutely imploded and resulted in his death. Unfortunately, I’m not kidding. As it turned out, with hindsight, it was a very, very good thing that he was no longer living with us; let’s just say there was significant abuse in that second family, and I was sheltered from most of it because I only saw him on weekends. The whore did encourage my abuse, though, if you can believe it. Fortunately, I was a bit ornery as a child. That’s all I’ll say. 🙂
His parents, my grandparents and my mother’s in-laws, did wind up speaking to him again, but they were never happy with that second marriage. When my mother married my stepfather, my father’s parents — again, her former, ex-in-laws — started inviting my stepfather to family gatherings and sending him birthday cards, etc. They welcomed him to their family because he was the husband of their former daughter-in-law whom they loved and respected, and because he was now acting as a father to their grandchildren.
So: I suppose my father’s life was Exhibit A for me as to what *not* to do. My grandparents gave my mother so much support that I was sometimes confused as a child as to whose parents they actually were. I learned from them how one ought to behave towards family. And from my mother, too, who was appreciative of their help and who never spoke one word against my father in my hearing.
It just sucks that now I’m reliving some of this mess after my H’s EA. I know for a fact that the EA has hit me much harder because of my past; that’s something my counselor made very clear. Sometimes I am so angry with my H for hitting me right on the faultline, so to speak. But if I can cope with my father, my hope is that I can cope with just about anything!

C, I’ve read up on PTSD from childhood abuse and how if you suffer trauma as an adult it is magnified because of your past which can trigger the PTSD. My therapist told me it would make the betrayal and recovery much harder, too.
Life is a bittersweet journey and I wish I knew why some of us seem to be continually put on the rockier path by other’s choices. Here’s a big hug and a high five to strength!

As far as ANY in laws, relatives, friends, enemies, etc. who encourage adultery, I can and will cut them out of my life. The ONLY person alive who has my “unconditional” love is my daughter. Why do people want to have relationships who treat them like crap? The people advocating unconditional love are usually the ones shoveling out the crap.

I’m with you Gizfield on the “crap treating relationships.” And like you said my MIL was always expounding on how family should love each other unconditionally.

She poked at me for decades and I made the excuse that at least she had a good heart. BullS#!+. She was just waiting for the kill shot. She saw an opening with our marriage troubles and became the OW’s best friend and ally. She, the OW, and her mother would lunch and shop together. My MIL frequently visited the OW’s and her M’s home for get togethers. It’s as if the 3 of them were in cahoots to reunite the long lost teenage lovers….boy do I feel like I was the “stupid wife” when I think of all this garbage. NO MORE of that! I now have FIRM boundaries. That’s the most applicable lesson I have learned.

For crying out loud: your MIL sounds like a carbon copy of mine. She still talks to the OW and goes to lunch and outings. I think it is disrespectful and have told her so. She told me I have no right to tell her who she can be friends with. I just know, that the OW still has a way to gain info on me and my husband and out life. It makes me physically ill that she can be ap heartless. She told me that she was friends with other woman for 12 years. Ya, guess what, I’ve been your daughter in law for 22

Carol, thanks so much for sharing your story. I didnt mean to stir up bad memories, but I think there is a lot to be learned from “adultery” stories that have played out to their conclusion. It’s usually NOT Pretty in any way. It would be a great blog topic I think: real life adultery stories and the generational damage they caused. My own (birth) mother was an adulterer. She caused a lot of damage to all four of her children. She was married, had a son and daughter, divorced he husband. Met a college boy, got pregnant, had me. They never married, I never have met him.

part 2–I was given up for family member adoption at 13 months. It gets kind of sketchy here. She left her two older children with her mother and moved 2000 miles or so to California. Supposedly spent time in a mental institution. After that, she was babysitting for a lady she met in there. Became pregnant withthe lady’s husband’s child. Nice. Wife commits suicide. Even nicer. My sister eventuallybecame a ward of the state and was in foster care. My mother left her in California and came back here, of course she claims she didnt abandon her. . At the age of six, she was adopted by a nice family, thank god.

Great idea for a topic. I have never heard anyone, anywhere utter the phrase “My extramarital affair turned out really well for all concerned.”
Sounds like your mom caused a lot of pain and chaos all around. I’m so sorry. And I’m glad that you and your sister had good adoptions.

Correct Trying, it is usually a sexual phase, re-connection or re-claiming of each other some partners go through after infidelity is discovered and the CS re-commits to the marriage. It has been characterized as being animistic, passionate, and instinctive. This phase usually only lasts for a few months and then the anger phase sets in over what the CS did.

Just wondering is anyone else having trouble seeing past all the lies that were told to you by your h/w?
Sometimes I find myself looking at my h and just wondering “are you telling me the truth with what you say to me?”
Sometimes I look at my h and think “how could you do what you did to us”. Or I wonder how he could have touched the ow at all, and if he really loved me and wanted to be with me, why the he’ll did he keep the contact with her for so long and watch me fall apart.
Sometimes I catch myself trying to find the man I fell in love with, not this person that took his place. Although I love him, I’m hesitant at believing the things he says.
Sometimes I think to myself, do I want this man that hurt me so much, even when I was the one fighting for us for so long.
I find myself wondering am I really enough for him. Am I fighting a losing battle because she is his family.
Sometimes I catch myself distancing myself and wondering are my feelings starting to change towards him.
I am finding this somewhat daunting because I know I love this man more than life itself and I can’t stand the thought of not having him in my life, yet sometimes I feel like I have lost something so important to me, and if only he hadn’t of lied for so long maybe I wouldn’t be feeling this way now. I don’t know, because I don’t understand any if it.
Sometimes since all the fog has lifted for me due to his ea, I feel like I was cheap, dtd with him while he was in love with her, while he came back home yet still saw her etc, I feel like I am the one who was cheapened. I feel like one that I cheapened myself, even though I truly wanted to be close to him, and I so desperately wanted him. Its stupid feeling that way especially now when I look back on it and it is now I feel like that.
Tell me I’m not alone in feeling this way.

Hi, you’re not alone in feeling like that. I sometimes wince when I think about how I bent over backwards to please him after discovery when he did bugger all to help me.
I also have the same feelings sometimes when I look at him. Things are much better than they have been and my H is great at making me feel good these days but I do wonder that this is the same man who threw me under a bus just to do what he wanted. I suppose I deal with it by considering that this was how he behaved when he was at his worst and I just now have a better appreciation of what he can be like if he wants to be. and the key phrase is ‘wants to be’. I can accept that what he did had nothing to do with me and my failings. If he wants to be a selfish lowlife again that’s his choice but it means I get a choice too, whether to put up with it or not.

Sorry you are going through this Chiff, but my wife did all the bending over backwards in our relationship; as it should have been. She stepped out of our marriage for 4 months, and she realized that that it was all her fault and she felt she had to make sure that my feeling of hurt and pain had to be fixed first in order for us to heal.

I sometimes wonder if she will do it again, but do not dwell on that as it only makes me mistrust her more. I’m pretty sure you didn’t have any failings, as I feel I don’t have any, but maybe we weren’t as attentive to their needs? True they were very unselfish, but as you said … That’s the people they were and as for my wife, she has been trying extremely hard since D-DAY. All the best!

Thank you chiffcaff, its ridiculous the thoughts that go through our heads, it would be nice to have a switch that we could turn off at times. Just like the switch our h had when they forgot about us, that amnesia that helped them forget about their wives and children, plus the blinders they were wearing might be good too, because they couldn’t really see what was in front of them the whole time.
I devoted wife isn’t going to stand by a h, especially in a situation such as an affair, if they truly didn’t love them and want to keep their family together. They would just say stuff you. Yet we stood our ground, we tried to keep our family running while we were back burned and the ow taking all of the compliments that he could dish out, for what? She got all the compliments for being a good god knows what. While the devoted wife looked after the family, and everything that needed to be looked after. Yet during the fog, we were still the ones that were walked over. We still had to keep proving ourselves.
During the fog, I used to wonder, I’m doing all this to keep my family together, to help him get back to normality, to make him feel good about himself and our family, when is it my turn to start feeling good through him?
He is getting better at making me feel good about, if only I could stop thinking is it just another lie.

I know I shouldn’t be comparing her to me, as really she cheapened herself not me, yet it does feel like i am the cheap one. I never asked to share my h with another w, i told him if he wanted to share himself he needed to leave. I know he never slept with her, I believe him with that, yet he did share his love in other ways emotionally, and I hate knowing that I did actually share my h with another w. I hate knowing that. I guess that’s why I feel cheapened, although I did nothing wrong, he is my h not hers.
So why am I beating myself up about this?
Anyhow I hope I can eventually look past all of this when I look at my h, and I can eventually see that what he tells me is true, and not a whole heap of cow poo. I just so much want to trust again, yet it is so hard, especially when you see a stranger at times.
Thanks for listening to my ramblings

Strength required: you are not alone in your thinking. Things are really going well her and he has told me it was the biggest mistake of his life and all the right words. However, when I’m alone I sometimes wonder how he could have acted the way he did. Not the affair as much as the callous disregard for me and our kids. I mean, am affair is one thing. Ya it hurts and you wonder where you went wrong but it was the words he told me and the callousness and lies and hurting he just kept dishing out. I cried for months. I was a wreck. My kids cried. Especially my daughter who is very close to my husband. She begged him to stop and he promises her several times he would and he kept going back answer getting caught over an over. I don’t think about the affair much anymore and I do trust him again. It’s those words that come back to haunt me over answer over. I am ashamed to admit , even now, that I literally tried to make his life better by hysterical bonding, cooking, cleaning, losing weight etc… And he continued to see her while accepting an enjoying my attention. He would never deliberately hurt anyone and if he had by accident he would apologize and feel remorse. Yet in the fog he deliberately hurt me and the kids over and over. He was a completely different person. That’s what I have a hard time with

Cindy – you say you trust your H again. If you don’t mind me asking how long has it been since D-day and does your H willingly talk(ed) about the affair?
It’s been 2.5 yrs since d-day, 4.5 since the affair and i just cannot seem to trust or believe my H. He lied about so much for so long and once the truth came out it was a slow drizzle, plus I just caught him about a yr ago with more lies about how deep his relationship was with another w during this same time period. Also, he will seldom talk about any of it without getting angry or shutting down.

For crying out loud: it was in September of 2010 I had first d day. Caught him talking to her 2 times after that. Once in oct and them jan 2011. No contact since. At first he wouldn’t tell me anything so I wen to the source. Had drinks with Ow. She told me everything and I mean everything She figured she would get me to leave. Told me some lies to as well. Then I confronted the hubby and little by little he opened up. He didn’t want to talk about it al all. Just wanted to forget. I told him I NEEDED to know so we talked about everything. For months and months and even to this day if I have a question or a trigger , I tell him and I tell him I need to talk about it. My hubby is Italian, and very “macho”. Not one for talking or emotions or anything but when I tell him I need to talk now, he stops what he is doing and we talk. He tells me who is texting him, who he saw on an errand and where he goes every single day without me asking. He even texts me if he goes somewhere else. The iPhone has a GPS thingie on it in case u lose your phone and that is turned on 24/7. His idea. He says he knows I’m anxious and he doesn’t want me to worry or wonder. He has made huge improvements in communication. If something is bothering me now, I just tell him and we talk it out. It wasn’t easy believe me. For months and months I wondered if I would ever be able to trust him and worried that I wouldn’t. It took a long time. But if you read any of my earlier posts, my mother in law and sis in law still talk to her. My hubby told them in front of me to never mention her name to us. It gets uncomfortable with the Inlaws during holidays but other than that we stay away from them. Things are good

Thank you Cindy, it’s good knowing that what I feel is common. Its good to see your h is regaining your trust, and you do trust him again.
I am trying, sometimes I think I am forcing myself to trust, even though what I really need is my h to help me trust him. He is away overnight alot because of us moving and his work, I think that is where my trouble is. He isn’t always around.
He is trying to be open, but I do get anxious, I do get nervous, and I do worry. He did this to us for a stupid bimbo.

Also. When we first started talking about the affair it would always end in a fight with me crying so he never wanted to talk again. But now we are to the point that we can say Skmethjng about it and not argue. He used to get mad and angry everytime I brought it up too. Believe me. I told him it was the only way I could heal. Period

thanks, Carol. My sister turned out really well. Very sweet, married long time. Two great kids. Even a cute little granddaughter. She couldn’t find any of us due to closed adoption records. My parents never told me I was adopted. My grandmother told me during a psychotic phone call in my early twenties. Very traumatic. A few years later I get a call from a sister I never even knew existed. Was afraid to answer the phone anymore. What happened to my mother. She apparently recovered from her mental illness, married a very homely man who worshiped her. Became a religious NUT. Always quoting the bible. My brother followed in her footsteps. Married four times, left third wife, engaged the next month. Swears he didn’t cheat. Also has jumped on the mega religion train. Coincidence? Doubt it.

“She pursued me” is the #1 all too common first thing a wayward husband says. Are you guys still buying into that line? Right, she pursued him soooo relentlessly that aliens took his brain and he no longer had the ability to choose. Your poor poor husband…oh how bad it must have been to be “pursued.” And you betrayed spouses EAT IT UP. It’s all lies and you still buy his crap. Shame on you.

I didn’t know that was the number one excuse. Were did you get that information cause it’s very interesting. As many books and articles that I’ve read I think I would have run across that?

Anyway you’re right. No one held a gun to his head and I’m sure he went along with it gladly. He admitted that at first they were both pursuing each other. She divorce my h didn’t divorce me. Never intended to. He liked having his cake and eating it too. The affair came to a point quickly for him that it was becoming too much work for him and he would make moves to end it for her to only threaten very passive aggressively that she would tell me and that was the worst thing that could happen. So he carried on status quo because hey I was none the wiser and he was already in neck deep.

He is 100% responsible and guilty for going outside the marriage. She didn’t betray me, he did. I laugh to when folks put all the blame on the OP like they are some kind of victim of a professional Mata Hari. But you have to know there are some people who are very tenacious and have a hard time letting go of their meal tickets/ sugar daddies. The keep bringing out their affair A game with threats or professions of devotion to the married lover. After it’s in their best interest financially most the time and certainly in my case it was for the OW.

So you can say “shame on you ladies” if you like. It’s certainly your prerogative to be judgemental on this issue. I just think you’re not very enlightened. Situations are different though so maybe you might want to think about your judgements before putting such a broad brushstroke on whom you choose to put your shame judgements.

Also Robb. This is a place where where the BS spouse can put all their vitriol onto the AP and release the anger. It’s actually very therapeutic.

If you’ve read many posts here you will see that we truly blame our spouses and not the OP in the affair. There is however no love lost or understanding to say the least no admiration for a person who chooses to have an affair with a married person.

There’s plenty of creepy people out there and she was just a player in his sick game. He can kick the trash can and 100 more just like her would come scurrying out like midnight cockroaches willing to take some else’s crumbs.

My exH had an affair, I believe, because he had poor boundaries and poor coping strategies. He was a manager at a firm that made various components and his AP (Affair Partner)packed these in boxes on a production line, for shipping on to various destinations. He found her crying at work one day (over some boyfriend problems) and felt sorry for her. Things developed from there.
Both my exH and myself are degree educated and I ran a business in a health-related speciality at the time. His AP was 10 years younger than him, lived at home with her mother and had left school without any qualifications.
When I found out about her at first I was insulted that he had chosen someone who was so inferior to me in terms of intellectual capacity and earning potential. However, as he made it clear that it was her he wanted and not me I divorced him and set him free to be with her. I reckoned if he wanted to “downgrade” then that was his problem.
He left and went to live with her and her mother in a 2 bedroom terrace house. I bought out his share of the matrimonial home and he used the money to buy a new car. It seems that after a lot of pushing from her they bought a house together and she put down the deposit for that. After 4 years of living together she got pregnant and they married. When the baby came she couldn’t cope so she moved her mother in to help out. So now he was the only one working and was supporting 3 other people.
I don’t think the AP was special, just available and had no scruples about sleeping with a married man.
I think maybe that she saw our house and thought she’d like to advance her standard of living by hooking him. What she didn’t realise was that, as I earned more money that my exH, most of our lifestyle was funded by me. Boy did she get a rude awakening when she found out her gold-digging was all in vain!
I think she took him for a fool and a meal ticket, but that’s his problem now.

Oh definitely affaires down. My h put pictures of himself and ow on our family cloud. Nice. She is not attractive, she is not the mother of his children, she doesn’t have a 21 year history with him, she is living wth a married man with two young children, and she is not his wife. Which positive aTribute has she got exactly!

Mine was messing with her first lover from when she was 15, we both are industrial electricians, we both earn close to 3000 a week. Her AP has been in prison on and off his whole life, last time he got out he contacted her, he was cheating on 3 other women he was lying his ass off too, he lives with one until problems start then he moves to the next, all of the other 3 are on welfare, so my wife was a huge step up for him, he just knew she was going to leave me for him, what a rude awakening he received when I found out.

My husband has definitely affaired down. He is sleeping with my EX good friend, my brother’s EX girlfriend, my nephew’s mother, my kid’s “aunt” & my oldest daughter’s “Godmother” (that’s laughable because there’s obviously nothing “Godly” about her). What a lovely person. So loyal & honest to me as she “consoled” me for weeks telling me that she was “talking” to my husband & trying to help our marriage all while she was screwing him. What a wonderful moral person she is. She even had the guts to tell my MIL that he deserves to be happy because he’s been thru a lot of shit (deployments, which I went thru with him in terms of supporting him back home), so I guess I don’t deserve to be happy with my husband & kids. She also told her “it’s not like I ruined a happy marriage”. Yeah, our marriage wasn’t perfect, but I honestly didn’t think it was that bad, but now he claims he wanted a divorce for a long time & hasnt loved me, even tho we just talked to a contractor about building a house, had a baby on the way, had a family vacation planned, bought a brand new family vehicle, etc. He claims he did those things to make me happy & that he didn’t want to do any of those things including having another child (he wasn’t planned, but I was more than happy to welcome a new baby into our family). I don’t see where his attraction to her is because he constantly said how she was a horrible parent & never disciplined her kids, that she was fat, immature, etc. She’s nothing special to look at either. I can guarantee I am a better mother, friend, wife & person than she’ll ever be because I would NEVER do what she’s done, not even to my worst enemy, which is her at the moment. He enjoys her because he has no real responsibility when he’s with her & gets to party & have sex. I guess that’s worth giving up your family, half your bank account, your possessions, your friends, the respect people have for you, etc etc etc. I could go on all day of the things he’s giving up…. for her…

Ok. I’m a married woman and I cheated. With an old co worker I didn’t really know and hadn’t seen in 10 years. It was at a time when I was going through perimenopause and I had depression and mood swings. Not a excuse but that’s what I was going through. My co workers always said he was sooo handsome. He popped up on fb one day and it started a non stop bombardament of how beautiful and sexy I was. Boy was I dumb. I fell for it. Months went on like this then he turned it sexual. At the time he was stationed in Korea so I felt safe nothing was going to happen. We shared naked photos except mine had to be full body shots with my face. I was so stupid to do that. One day he traveled 9,000 miles and texted he Gould be here the next day. I was panicked. I did not want to do it but I felt trapped. So I met him in his car and had sex. Didn’t last long he had ed problems and a cop drove by and it ended. Two days later I went to his room. He was in a hurry and that’s when I got my first real look at him. He was a big man and he had a near micro penis. I guess i was in shock at how small it was. Then he wanted oral but it smelled like armpit and ass so I couldn’t. That’s when the anger started to surface. The sex was about 15 minutes with lots of ed problems. It sucked. I felt used. I don’t know why I didn’t end it. Maybe I was scared. He wanted video chat with me naked so he could beat off. Humiliating. He showed up once more and I went over to end it. But he was drunk and I was scared. I told him know but he did it anyway. Took 20 min for the pain to go away. Again massive ed problems. he masterbated more than he had sex. It was awful. For seven more months he hounded me for pictures. More and more degrading and humiliating. Controlling. He always asked how great he was in bed. I just told him good cause I didn’t want to make him angry. He always bragged how good he fucked me. Made me sick to think of it. No more mister charming. Then I got caught and I was happy to get caught. Not that I wanted to hurt my husband but it ended something I couldn’t do myself. Did I affair down? Yes. I looked at him when I first met him and realized he wasn’t handsome at all. The charm he showed online was an act. In person he was a real dud. Then he changed into a controlling monster. His text and pictures were a way to beat me down if I was happy. If I posted stuff on fb about how I loved my husband he would pop up and demand pictures. I guess I was afraid of him. He is the exact opposite of my husband. And in the two years we had this affair he never even said he liked me. He never told me where he lived when he came back from overseas. He said Texas, Virginia, Delaware. Had it all set up to disappear if something happened. Well my husband found him. And he turned into a coward. Blamed me. Told my husband lies. He was the innocent victim. So yes I affaired down in a big way. My low self esteem liked the attention at first. It was exciting. The man in person was nasty and the “mind blowing” affair sex everyone talks about didn’t happen. Of course I can’t get my husband to believe that. We are still together but it has damaged our marriage. Three years on he isn’t over it and I understand that. This was my fault. I needed an ego boost at the time and he gave it to me. But it soon turned into a nightmare. Don’t ever have an affair. It’s so not worth it. I hurt the one man who truly loves me and damaged him forever. Did I affair down? You bet. I got the bottom of the barrel scum low life. And it was my choice to do it. I was stupid.